Business

CEOs who have moved away from their country of origin are more likely to make international acquisitions, with a preference for targets in their birth country, a new study by researchers at the ��Ƶ shows.

Using a sample of nearly 1,300 corporate acquisitions over a 14-year period, Ron Shalev, an associate professor of accounting at U of T Scarborough who is cross-appointed to the Rotman School of Management, and his co-authors compared acquisitions, financial and other corporate data with biographical information on the companies’ CEOs at the time of the purchases.

“Foreign-born CEOs are taking an increasing leadership role in the corporate world,” says Shalev of the research. “In our sample, 24 per cent of the acquiring companies have foreign-born CEOs.”

The study, published in the Journal of Accounting Research, was co-authored by Milan-based researchers Antonio Marra of the Università Bocconi and Angela Pettinicchio of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and SDA Bocconi School of Management.

After examining the data, Shalev and his colleagues found that foreign-born CEOs were 43 per cent more likely than domestic-born ones to acquire across borders – and that the phenomenon may be explained by a preference for acquiring in the countries of their birth. When considering all potential international targets that might be on the CEO’s radar, the researchers found that foreign-born CEOs were 17 times more likely to go after a buy in their country of origin versus another cross-border acquisition.

That difference was explained by the CEO having a leg up by knowing more about the country and having local connections. They are also driven by a desire to “give back” to the place where they came from, the researchers say.

The researchers also found that foreign-born CEOs were more than twice as likely to make an acquisition in a former colonizer of their birth country as they were to choose any other potential international target. “The idea is that if a CEO wants to bring pride to the birth country, she would acquire targets in the country that colonized it in the past,” says Shalev.

How are companies involved affected by CEOs tendency to acquire targets in their birth country? The acquiring company’s shareholders see a 1.3 per cent difference in excess returns on acquisitions in the CEO’s birth country, while shareholders of the target company enjoy a 2.9 per cent excess premium due to the purchase.

“This is not something that should prevent the hiring of a CEO,” Shalev says of the findings.

Instead, he says it’s simply an aspect a company’s board should be aware of and, if the CEO has a target in mind in their birth country, to take a harder look at the proposal. “In many cases these acquisitions will be good for the acquirer firm – but not always.”

Power and prediction: U of T's Avi Goldfarb on the disruptive economics of artificial intelligence

siddiq22 — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 16:38:57 +0000

Power and prediction: U of T's Avi Goldfarb on the disruptive economics of artificial intelligence

siddiq22 Fri, 01/20/2023 - 11:38

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Avi Goldfarb, a professor at the Rotman School of Management and research lead at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, says the AI revolution is well underway – but that system-level change takes time (supplied images)

Daniel Browne

Topic

Global Lens

Technology and Society

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Artificial Intelligence

Business

Health

Rotman School of Management

Startups

Technology

In the new book Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence, co-author Avi Goldfarb argues we live in the “Between Times”: after discovering the potential of AI, but before its widespread adoption.

Delays in implementation are an essential part of any technology with the power to truly reshape society, says Goldfarb, a professor of marketing and the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare at the ��Ƶ's Rotman School of Management and research lead at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

He makes the case for how AI innovation will evolve in Power and Prediction, his latest book co-authored with fellow Rotman professors Ajay Agrawal and Joshua Gans. The trio, who also wrote 2018’s Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, are the co-founders of the Creative Destruction Lab, a non-profit organization that helps science- and technology-based startups scale.

Goldfarb will give a talk at the Rotman School of Management on Jan. 25 as part of the SRI Seminar Series. He spoke with the Schwartz Reisman Institute to discuss how the evolution of AI innovation will require systems-level changes to the ways that organizations make decisions.

(The interview has been condensed for length and clarity.)

What changed in your understanding of the landscape of AI innovation since your last book?

We wrote Prediction Machines thinking that a revolution was about to happen, and we saw that revolution happening at a handful of companies like Google, Amazon and others. But when it came to most businesses we interacted with, by 2021 we started to feel a sense of disappointment. Yes, there was all this potential, but it hadn’t affected their bottom line yet – the uses that they’d found had been incremental, rather than transformational. And that got us trying to understand what went wrong.

One potential thing that could have gone wrong, of course, was that AI wasn’t as exciting as we thought. Another was that the technology was potentially as big a deal as the major revolutions of the past 200 years – innovations like steam, electricity, computing – and the issue was system-level implementation. For every major technological innovation, it took a long time to figure out how to make that change affect society at scale.

The core idea of Power and Prediction is that AI is an exciting technology – but it’s going to take time to see its effects, because a lot of complementary innovation has to happen as well. Now, some might respond that’s not very helpful, because we don’t want to wait. And part of our agenda in the book is to accelerate the timeline of this innovation from 40 years to 10, or even less. To get there, we then need to think through what this innovation is going to look like. We can’t just say it’s going to take time – that’s not constructive.

What sort of changes are needed for organizations to harness AI’s full potential?

Here, we lean on three key ideas. The first idea is that AI today is not artificial general intelligence (AGI) – it’s prediction technology. The second is that a prediction is useful because it helps you make decisions. A prediction without a decision is useless. So, what AI really does is allow you to unbundle the prediction from the rest of the decision, and that can lead to all sorts of transformation. Finally, the third key idea is that decisions don’t happen in isolation.

What prediction machines do is allow you to change who makes decisions and when those decisions are made. There are all sorts of examples of what seems like an automated decision, but what it actually does is take some human’s decision – typically at headquarters – and scales it. For organizations to succeed, they require a whole bunch of people working in concert. It’s not about one decision – it’s about decisions working together.

One example is health care – at the emergency department, there is somebody on triage, who gives a prediction about the severity of what’s going on. They might send a patient immediately for tests or ask them to wait. Right now, AIs are used in triage at SickKids in Toronto and other hospitals, and they are making it more effective. But to really take advantage of the prediction, they need to coordinate with the next step. If triage is sending people for a particular test more frequently, then there need to be other decisions made about staffing for those tests, and where to offer them. And, if your predictions are good enough, there’s an even different decision to be made – maybe you don’t even need the tests. If your prediction that somebody’s having a heart attack is good enough, you don’t need to send them for that extra test and waste that time or money. Instead, you’ll send them direct to treatment, and that requires coordination between what’s happening upstream on the triage side and what’s happening downstream in terms of the testing or treatment side.

AI is as exciting a technology as electricity and computing, but it will take time to see its effects, Avi Goldfarb says.

Will certain sectors have greater ease in adopting system-level changes than others?

There is a real opportunity here for startups because when building a new system from scratch, it’s often easier to start with nothing. You don’t have to convince people to come along with your changes, so it becomes a less political process – at least within your organization. If you’re trying to change a huge established company or organization, it’s going to be harder.

I’m very excited about the potential for AI and health care, but health care is complicated; there are so many different decision-makers. There are the patients, the payers – sometimes government, sometimes insurance companies, sometimes a combination of the above – and then there are doctors, who have certain interests, medical administrators who might have different interests, and nurses.

AI has potential to supercharge nurses, because a key distinction between a doctor and a nurse in terms of training is diagnosis, which is a prediction problem. If AI is helping with diagnosis, that has potential to make nurses more central to how we structure the system. But that’s going to require all sorts of changes, and we have to get used to that as patients. And so, while I think the 30-year vision for what health care could look like is extraordinary, the five-year timeline is really, really hard.

What are some of the other important barriers to AI adoption?

A lot of the challenges to AI adoption come from ambiguity about what’s allowed or not in terms of regulation. In health care contexts, we are seeing lots of people trying to identify incremental point solutions that don’t require regulatory approval. We may have an AI that can replace a human in some medical process, but to do it is going to be a 10-year, multibillion-dollar process to get approval – so they’ll implement it in an app that people can use at home with a warning that it’s not real medical advice.

The regulatory resistance to change, and the ambiguity of what’s allowed, is a real barrier. As we start thinking about system changes, there is an important role for government through legislation and regulation, as well as through its coordinating function as the country’s biggest buyer of stuff, to help push us toward new AI-based systems.

There are also real concerns about data and bias, especially in the short term. However, in the long run, I’m very optimistic about AI to help with discrimination and bias. While a lot of the resistance to AI implementation right now is coming from people who are worried about [people who will be negatively impacted by] bias [in the data], I think that pretty soon this will flip around.

There’s a story we discuss in the book, where Major League Baseball brought in a machine that could say whether a pitch was a strike or a ball, and the people who resisted it turned out to be the superstars. Why? Well, the best hitters tended to get favored by umpires and face smaller strike zones, and the best pitchers also tended to get favoured and had bigger strike zones. The superstars benefited from this human bias, and when they brought in a fairer system, the superstars got hurt. So, we should expect that people who currently benefit from bias are going to resist machine systems that can overcome it.

What do you look for to indicate where disruptions from AI innovation will occur?

We’re seeing this change already in a handful of industries tech is paying attention to, such as advertising. Advertising had a very Mad Men vibe until recently: there was a lot of seeming magic in terms of whether an ad worked, how to hire an agency and how the industry operated – a lot of charm and fancy dinners. That hasn’t completely gone away, but advertising is largely an algorithm-based industry now. The most powerful players are big tech companies – they’re no longer the historical publishers who worked on Madison Avenue. We’ve seen the disruption – it’s happened.

Think through the mission of any industry or a company. Once you understand the mission, think through all the ways that mission is compromised because of bad prediction. Once you see where the mission doesn’t align with the ways in which an organization is actually operating, those are going to be the cases where either the organization is going to need to disrupt themselves, or someone’s going to come along and do what they do better.

Read the full Q&A at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

In MBA program, twin brothers set themselves up for success – and discovered what makes them unique

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 15:28:01 +0000

In MBA program, twin brothers set themselves up for success – and discovered what makes them unique

geoff.vendeville Fri, 07/22/2022 - 11:28

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Nishul and Nakul Juneja, twins and graduates of the MBA program in the Rotman School of Management, took many of the same courses and both interned at Amazon – but also learned about what makes them different (photo by Eugene Grichko/Rotman)

Topic

Rotman School of Management

In many ways, brothers Nakul and Nishul Juneja live up to the identical twin stereotype.

They wear similar rectangular glasses and often finish each other’s sentences. They completed the same undergraduate program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, then both went on to work at the Hershey Company’s corporate office as analysts. Now, they've checked off another major milestone together: graduating with master's of business administration degrees from the ��Ƶ's Rotman School of Management.

While the Juneja brothers have a lot in common, they have strived to express their individuality. In their classes, they learned about a similar problem in the world of marketing: when an almost identical brand exists in the market, how do you set your own apart?

“People assume we have the same outlook on everything, but it’s very different at times,” Nishul says. “It was our experience at Rotman which helped us understand how to identify and leverage our personal strengths.”

The brothers planned to set off on different paths after graduation. Nakul was set to join the consulting firm McKinsey & Company as an associate, while Nishul was due to become a senior product manager on Amazon’s advertising team. Although they moved in lockstep at Rotman – taking nearly all the same courses, joining the same clubs and both interning at Amazon – they were also able to discover what made each of them unique.

Spending time with Nakul, it becomes obvious he loves experiencing new things, although he's more introverted than his brother.

While Nakul had never worked in consulting before, it was one of his long-held goals to give it a try. During the MBA program, Nakul learned his strengths lie in strategy and international management. One of the highlights of his time at Rotman was participating in a mental health case competition with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Rotman Management Consulting Association.

“I found an appreciation for consulting work across different sectors and discovered the impact I can have on people and organizations through my work,” he says.

Like his brother, Nakul also considered joining Amazon full-time after graduation. During his internship following his first year in the MBA program, he helped build an internal software product designed to track employee engagement. While he loved the stimulating environment there, he decided to pursue his goal of working in consulting.

“I’m excited for this new chapter in my career,” Nakul says. “McKinsey works with global companies on complex issues where I can really apply the learnings and frameworks from class, from negotiation to international business.”

Nishul also thrived during an internship at Amazon and accepted an offer to return there after graduation. He saw that the opportunities in the company aligned with his own long-term career goal: to manage diverse teams, and ultimately become a leader at a global company.

“Amazon is probably the most customer-obsessed company in the world, and it meshes well with my desire to become a customer-obsessed manager,” Nishul says.

Nishul pursued an executive position in the Rotman Marketing Association, where he served as the vice-president of industry relations and finance. When a series of case competitions didn't go the brothers' way, Nishul and Nakul promised themselves that they would step up their game.

“We signed up as a two-person team for the Brewery Case Competition, hosted by the Rotman Beer Association, where you partner with a local brewery and try to fix a business problem for them,” says Nishul. “We were with Lost Craft Brewery, and we spent three days working on their business problem... and trying a bunch of their products.”

Facing stiff competition, the brothers still managed to snag third place.

“Everyone wants to do everything. There are a hundred different things to try during an MBA program and it really is like drinking from a firehose,” says Nishul. “I tried to find the two or three things that really mattered to me.”

Nakul and Nishul say they learned many things at Rotman, including strict time management and sharp negotiation skills that will serve them well in their careers.

Nishul, who started the program with his brother in the fall of 2020 as the world adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic, said going to school at such an unusual time was a “life-changing” experience.

“We’re now entering a world where everything has changed, and we have the right skillset to succeed in this new world,” he adds. “In business, we’re seeing new regulations and a big push towards e-commerce and international trade – all these things which we learned in-depth at Rotman.”

For Nakul, it's the warm and welcoming community he found in Toronto and at Rotman that made an impact on him as an international student.

“It’s the most familiar [and] unfamiliar place you’ll ever see. Your classmates are there for you. The school is there for you,” he says. “It might take some time to get used to things, especially for folks who are more reserved, but once you’re here, you’ll see that there are opportunities for everyone.”

Nakul and Nishul are now poised to embrace the world separately, together.

“We came to Rotman wanting to pivot our careers and meet interesting people, and we’re leaving with so much more than that,” Nakul says. “We now have the knowledge and experience to help us succeed in an ever-changing world.”

“Getting a refreshing perspective on the world, working with students and professors from diverse backgrounds – it makes you see the world differently than before,” adds Nishul.

“It changes the way you see problems, the way you behave and ultimately, who you are.”

U of T Scarborough grad aims to empower women, under-represented groups in business and STEM

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 15:00:18 +0000

U of T Scarborough grad aims to empower women, under-represented groups in business and STEM

geoff.vendeville Thu, 06/09/2022 - 11:00

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Vanshika Agarwal, who won the 2021 Management Co-op Student of the Year award, is graduating from the management co-op program at U of T Scarborough (photo by Don Campbell)

Topic

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Vanshika Agarwal landed an eight-month, remote internship as an equity research and product intern at Canalyst, a leader in the industry of market data and analytics with offices in New York City and Vancouver.

Although she was still a student in the ��Ƶ Scarborough's bachelor of business administration co-op program, Agarwal was not shy about putting forward her ideas in the office. She successfully pitched the company's CEO to establish a system of automated outreach tactics to offer Canalyst to finance students. In short order, she secured clients from American MBA programs, mainly at Ivy League schools, and increased membership to more than 300 participants across the U.S. within six months.

“No one usually wants to hear what a 20-year-old has to say, but I held sessions with more than 50 people interested in the product. It was a fun and fascinating experience,” Agarwal says.

Graduating this week, Agarwal says she's eager to put her energy toward leveling the playing field in business once she joins the work force. “Leadership for me means that everyone can be a leader in some capacity. I want to make an impact and help people realize the idea of ‘experience to lead,’” she says.

Agarwal credits her parents for teaching her determination and about the importance of empowering women. Shortly after arriving in Canada as an international student from Mumbai, she worked for Accelerate Her Future (AHF), a career accelerator for self-identified Black, Indigenous and other women of colour in business and STEM. The accelerator started as pilot at U of T, in 2019.

At AHF, Agarwal helped develop networking programs as an advisory board member and special initiatives intern through ICUBE UTM, U of T Mississauga’s entrepreneurship incubator.

“I became extremely passionate when I noticed people who didn’t look like me in the industry. Everyone has some power to bring change, and I saw this gap that needs to be filled, especially with women in finance,” Agarwal says.

Alongside volunteering for organizations seeking to advance gender equality in finance, Agarwal also worked at U of T Scarborough as a teaching assistant for five management courses. As a co-op career coach, she also provided students with tips for job interviews, work-term success and networking.

Last year, she received the Management Co-op Student of the Year award for her extensive work-integrated learning (WIL) experience and impact in fintech.

“It was quite humbling and motivating to have received that award,” she says. “It made me realize how I can start to give back to my peers at different stages of their academic career.”

With her sights currently set on business school and working within equity research and capital markets, she hopes to eventually build a side project to create a pipeline for women to find opportunities in STEM and business straight from high school.

As for her advice for incoming students, Agarwal’s key piece of wisdom includes having confidence in yourself and being open to taking chances.

“Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Never second guess yourself and always be willing to take chances.”

Alumni from Rotman's MBA program offer tips to empower the next generation of Black business leaders

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 17:52:59 +0000

Alumni from Rotman's MBA program offer tips to empower the next generation of Black business leaders

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/25/2022 - 12:52

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From left to right: Mo Banjoko, Phil McDonald and Wale Oyebanjo are MBA alumni from U of T's Rotman School of Management (photos courtesy of Rotman)

Topic

Rotman School of Management

Be an agent of change, stay true to yourself and remain open to unexpected opportunities.

These are among the words of advice offered by successful MBA alumni from the ��Ƶ’s Rotman School of Management who want to empower a new generation of leaders in the Black, African-Canadian and Afro-Caribbean communities.

Mo Banjoko, Wale Oyebanjo and Phil McDonald reflected on their MBA experience and unique career journeys at the Future Black Business Leaders Conference earlier this month.

The annual event was co-hosted by the Rotman African Caribbean Business Club (RACBC) and Students Against Anti-Black Racism (SABR), two student-run groups at the school.

“Our goal for this event was to spotlight Black Excellence in the Rotman community by creating space for business professionals, faculty, students and alumni to share their perspectives and insights," says Charles Locoh-Donou, SABR's vice-president of events and co-president of RACBC.

“It also helps to build continuity in the conversation around anti-Black racism beyond the academic environment – through to its implications in corporate Canada – which is a primary element of our mandate. We're passionate about events like this as they’re highly inspirational and encouraging for prospective Black students who consider Rotman in their pursuit of advanced studies like the MBA program.”

Here’s a snapshot of the advice Banjoko, Oyebanjo and McDonald shared with others at the event:

Mo Banjoko on networking in a new cultural environment

Senior Manager, Business Consulting at EPAM Systems

As an international student from Nigeria, Banjoko was met with a sharp learning curve as she adjusted to a new culture upon arriving in Toronto.

“Networking did not come naturally to me at all and I didn’t know anybody,” says Banjoko, who received her MBA in 2018 in an effort to pivot her accounting career into one focused on strategy and technology.

“Reaching out to someone on LinkedIn or being the only Black person in the room at a networking event was always a little scary.”

She says it helped to change her mindset and see the discomfort as a learning opportunity.

“I’ve realized people are very willing to share their experiences and help you, but you also need to help them by going in prepared and being more deliberate with your questions,” she says.

Working with career coaches through Rotman career services was a “lifesaver,” she says, giving her tools and tricks for interviewing and presenting that she uses to this day.

“It takes a team of people to help you reinvent yourself, to give you feedback and tell you where your strengths are.”

In her current role, Banjoko oversees process collaboration and stakeholder engagement in the payment systems space.

She says she’s encouraged to see more Black students at Rotman, along with scholarships and funding to support future classes.

Rotman has launched several new scholarships for Black and Indigenous students, including the Morning and Evening MBA Black Students Advancement Scholarship, which was endowed as part of the inaugural Rotman Giving Day in 2021; and the Rotman African Caribbean Business Club Scholarship, which received support from the Laidlaw Foundation.

Ten per cent of the Rotman full-time MBA Class of 2023 identified as Black.

“It’s moving the needle,” Banjoko says. “I think it shows that if you see something around you that can be improved, you can speak up and people at Rotman want to help.”

Wale Oyebanjo on the power of a diverse city

Investment Banking Associate at Scotiabank

Before Oyebanjo worked in finance, he was an emergency room physician in Nigeria.

His transition into the finance industry began in Nigeria, but Oyebanjo was determined to enter the larger North American market to expand his reach in investment banking.

“Education is culture. If I wanted to understand the business culture, I knew I needed to start with education,” he says. When it was time to pursue an MBA program, he looked to Rotman, since it was in the heart of Toronto, a global city and finance hub. He received his degree in 2020.

“The professors are world-class and it’s a very diverse environment,” Oyebanjo says. “You have people from every part of the world, so you get to see things from a global lens. That’s something that stuck out for me.”

He says refining his financial modelling skills was the most valuable thing he gained from the program, along with having a massive alumni network to tap into.

“That’s led me to where I am today,” says Oyebanjo, who currently specializes in technology and health-care deal transactions at Scotiabank.

“The upside to an MBA at Rotman is massive and you want to catch the opportunity now,” he says. “There are tons of resources waiting for you to explore.”

Phil McDonald on starting new initiatives at Rotman

Vice President, Business Development at Headset

McDonald calls himself a data geek and entrepreneur at heart. It’s only natural that during his MBA at Rotman, which he completed in 2017, that he started the Rotman Business Analytics Club to bring people together to build digital literacy skills.

“Data is the new oil: something that’s going to drive businesses for generations to come,” says McDonald, who currently leads strategic partnerships and growth initiatives at Headset, an analytics and market intelligence company focused on the cannabis industry.

“If there’s something you want to bring to Rotman, you have the supports in place. If you have something in mind, it’s on you to make it happen and I encourage everyone to lean into that.”

In addition to courses in strategy, McDonald says the coaching he received from the Joe Weider Foundation Leadership Development Lab in his first year of the program was invaluable to his success as a leader.

“I didn’t realize that I paced a lot while I spoke, so having that real-time feedback from coaches and professors who care about your development was fantastic,” he says.

His advice for those considering an MBA?

“Go in with a plan and understand what you want to get out of it and work backwards. But also, be open because you never know what could happen.”

Gender-diverse corporate boards reduce financial misconduct: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:32:43 +0000

Gender-diverse corporate boards reduce financial misconduct: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 02/12/2020 - 11:32

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Aida Sijamic Wahid, an associate professor of accounting at U of T Mississauga and the Rotman School of Management, wanted to study the original issue that sparked the push for more women on boards (photo courtesy of Rotman School of Management)

Topic

Rotman School of Management

U of T Mississauga

Women

Putting women on the board of an organization is not only the fair thing to do, it leads to better financial reporting, research from the ��Ƶ shows.

A new study of more than 6,000 U.S.-listed companies found that firms with a mix of women and men on their boards outperformed those where boards had no women or only one, with fewer financial reporting restatements and a lower incidence of fraud.

Diversity was key. The improvements levelled out once boards approached gender parity. That suggests the difference may come from a broadening of perspectives around the board table and not because women brought superior skills or other characteristics, said the study.

“If women are better at something than men, then we should see that, as we add more women to the board, each additional woman should produce more value. But that’s not the case,” said study author Aida Sijamic Wahid, an associate professor of accounting at U of T Mississauga and the Rotman School of Management.

Increasing the number of women on corporate boards was floated by regulators to reduce conformist board-thinking after the 2001 collapse of energy giant Enron in an accounting fraud scandal. It’s the reason why Wahid chose to focus on financial reporting as an indicator of board performance.

“I wanted to go back to the original issue behind why we even began thinking whether boards needed to be more diverse,” Wahid said.

She dug into data for 6,132 firms from 2000 to 2010, including information on board directors, financial restatements and restatement irregularities.

The benefits of more women continued to increase up to about three female directors before starting to diminish, with an average total board size of about nine directors.

Only about 20 companies, mostly in apparel or cosmetics, had boards with a majority of female directors at any time during the decade, according to the research. The percentage of firms with at least one female director dropped during the period, from 56 per cent to 54 per cent. The percentage of women on boards that had any women increased from 7.6 per cent to 9.1 per cent.

The results held for the periods before and after the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act tightened rules on corporate governance in the United States.

Although it’s been nearly two decades since gender diversity on boards was raised post-Enron, boards have been slow to change and research has been inconclusive. The state of California, in a controversial move, is requiring all publicly traded companies to have at least one woman on their boards by the end of this year and between one and three female directors by 2021.

“We’re still not there when it comes to diversity and gender diversity,” said Wahid. “The issue has created certain pressures from investors – they’re the ones moving the needle. But many firms are very slow to respond to it.”

The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics.

McDonald's upheaval is a stern reminder to CEOs about ethics: U of T expert

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:59:34 +0000

McDonald's upheaval is a stern reminder to CEOs about ethics: U of T expert

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 11/18/2019 - 09:59

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McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook was terminated by his board after admitting to a consensual relationship with another company employee (photo by Alyssa Schukar via AP Images for McDonald's)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Rotman School of Management

The board of directors of McDonald’s recently announced it was terminating the employment of chief executive officer Steve Easterbrook because he “demonstrated poor judgment” involving a consensual relationship with another company employee.

The process followed by the board in arriving at their decision appears impeccable. Once made aware of the situation by their general counsel, a highly reputable outside law firm was retained to investigate.

Following a three-week investigation, the board held what are described as “lengthy discussions and meetings” to consider the independent inquiry and ultimately voted unanimously to remove the CEO.

The factors underlying the board’s decision were described as a combination of a violation of a long-standing company policy forbidding employees having relationships with direct or indirect reports at all levels, as well as concerns that the CEO had demonstrated poor judgment regarding personal affairs and corporate conduct.

Following his termination, Easterbrook stated in an email to employees: “Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on.”

CEOs are powerful

The role of CEO is very powerful, and it should be. The CEO is expected to articulate strategic direction, build a strong leadership team, manage significant risks and deliver results that fulfil the expectations of many powerful stakeholders, including investors, customers, employees, communities and regulators.

The job of a CEO at a major corporation like McDonald’s is extraordinarily demanding – few people have the combination of intelligence, insight, leadership skills and stamina to fulfil it effectively.

At the same time, the CEO only possesses authority and influence to the extent that these have been delegated by the board. For corporations in both Canada and the United States, the authority to “manage the affairs of the corporation” is legally invested in the board.

Many corporate governance experts view the most important task of the board as the selection and oversight of the CEO. Boards that get that right are highly likely to be successful. Those that get it wrong are usually doomed to substandard performance if not outright failure.

‘Imperial’ CEOs

There always is, and always has been, a risk of the board allowing and enabling the emergence of an “imperial” CEO. The risk of this occurring was greater in the past, when the norm was for the roles of CEO and board chair to be filled by the same person.

Today in Canada, that practice is virtually extinct among major publicly traded corporations. Interestingly, the transition away from the practice has been notably slower in the U.S., where 47 per cent of S&P 500 companies still have a joint CEO/board chair.

However, that can’t explain the situation at McDonald’s, where the roles have been separated for some time.

The McDonald’s policy forbidding personal relationships with direct or indirect employees at any level has a very sound rationale (and for the CEO, that means all employees).

When one party to a relationship is in a position of direct or indirect authority over the other, it’s impossible to know with certainty the extent to which the subordinate engaging in the relationship is either consciously or unconsciously acting out of deference or fear. And what if the subordinate partner in the relationship begins getting preferential treatment at work?

There are also many examples of situations where people in positions of authority have used the power and authority of their positions to coerce subordinates into sexual relationships.

That does not appear to be an issue in this case, where both parties described the relationship as consensual. There have been no allegations of sexual harassment.

A question of judgment

And that brings us back to the issue of judgment. Easterbrook should have known better. As CEO, he was the embodiment of the corporation to all stakeholders, including employees. As such he was the most potent role model for the values of the organization and the person whose actions had the greatest impact on the culture of the organization.

The attitudes and behaviour of employees are impacted much more strongly by the actions of their bosses than by their words. And the CEO is the most visible and powerful role model of all.

CEOs are the literal and symbolic heads of their organizations. They are the ambassador for the values their organizations espouse and view as fundamental to their success.

They cannot afford to jeopardize their ability to fulfil the trust placed in them by the many stakeholders impacted by their behaviour and performance by engaging in activities inconsistent with those values.

Hugh Arnold is an adjunct professor of organizational behaviour at the Rotman School of Management at the ��Ƶ.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Toronto emerging as centre of innovation - and disruption, OMERS venture fund CEO says

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 11 May 2017 11:16:45 +0000

Toronto emerging as centre of innovation - and disruption, OMERS venture fund CEO says

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 05/11/2017 - 07:16

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Toronto's startup scene has exploded in recent years, particularly in fields like financial technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning (photo by Jamie McCaffrey via Flickr)

Chris Sorensen

Author legacy

Chris Sorensen

Topic

Global Lens

Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab

Artificial Intelligence

Fresh off closing a $300 million venture fund with a buy-in from some of Canada’s biggest banks and financial institutions, John Ruffolo will be at the ��Ƶ on Friday to talk about how developments in artificial intelligence, fintech and machine learning are rapidly disrupting traditional industries.

Ruffolo is the CEO of OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension fund. He's scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at the Funding Innovation Conference hosted by U of T’s Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab, one of 10 business accelerators on campus.

Learn more about the conference

U of T News spoke with Ruffolo about how Canada – and Toronto in particular – landed on the VC world’s radar, and how we can best take advantage of our leadership in AI, machine learning and other high-demand fields.

(photo of John Ruffolo courtesy of OMERS)

You made news this week after closing your third venture fund. What sort of appetite are you seeing for this type of investment and how does it compare to when OMERS Ventures launched six years ago?

There have been two big developments. When you see who has joined forces with us, it’s a recognition by some of the leading companies in this country that their businesses are being disrupted. That wasn’t the situation six years ago. So if you want proof that people are thinking about it, and focused on it, that’s it.

Number two: not only are these big Canadian companies recognizing their businesses are being disrupted, they’re realizing the solutions to that disruption are right here in this country. The thing that surprised me was the amount of [investment interest] we had from companies in Canada and from around the world – these are people who think Toronto is the place to come and find solutions. That’s very new.

How new? Within the last five years?

I would say two.

So does that speak to the pace of the disruption?

It’s speaking to the pace of the disruption, but it’s also speaking to the fact the startup community in and around Toronto is also moving at an accelerated pace – and the rest of the world is finally starting to realize it.

What sorts of companies will OMERS Ventures be targeting?

Fintech is one. Another is the future of work, which includes robotics, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Also, the future of transportation – autonomous vehicles – and the future of retail, which is e-commerce and those sorts of things.

The last one is synthetic biology, which, again, involves artificial intelligence, genomics and machine learning.

Those are five areas where we’ve got world class companies.

In the past you’ve talked about the challenges Canada faces when it comes to scaling up startups into big, market-dominating companies. What are we doing well here in Toronto and which areas need more work?

Toronto, generally speaking, doesn’t have a startup problem. We’re seeing great entrepreneurship, great innovation and the complexity of the technologies we’re building are incredible. So there are lots of positives.

The fundamental issue is on the scaling-up side, so we can compete in global markets. We need a lot of work there. One of the biggest challenges I see is we haven’t had a lot people who have the expertise – people who have been there and done that. That’s an ongoing challenge.

Lately there's been a lot of buzz about AI and machine learning, where U of T is leading research. What's your take on the future of this space?

Back in the ‘90s people asked, “Are you on the Web?” Now everyone’s on the Web. In the 2000s, the same thing happened with being "mobile-first." Now people are asking, “Are you using artificial intelligence?”

This is really about using computer-based processes and technology to replace repetitive human tasks. So it’s going to be pervasive. It will be in everything. It will be in every single business we’re going to invest in.

Raptors, NHL, Jays execs and others to speak to U of T students at annual sports industry conference

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 15:34:52 +0000

Raptors, NHL, Jays execs and others to speak to U of T students at annual sports industry conference

geoff.vendeville Mon, 01/30/2017 - 10:34

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Melanie Yu, president of the ��Ƶ Sports and Business Association, holds a jersey signed by Raptors forward Terrence Ross, a raffle prize at the MLSE Foundation on Feb. 10 and 11 (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

City & Culture

Rotman School of Management

The business of sports can be just as competitive as sport itself. But what if you could kickstart your career with tips from the pros?

Since 2012, the student-led ��Ƶ Sports and Business Association has invited some of the industry’s big players to a conference at U of T’s Rotman School of Management to discuss career development and new trends in the business. Last year, an estimated 400 students and young professionals attended the conference.

This year, the conference expands to two days (Feb. 10 and 11) and features executives from the Toronto Blue Jays, NBA Canada, NHL Enterprises and the commissioner of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Students will have the chance to hear from the likes of Brendan Shanahan, president and alternate governor of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and alumna Neda Tabatabaei, the vice-president of business intelligence at the San Jose Sharks and a U of T economics graduate.

See all the speakers

The theme of this year’s event, “positioning in sports,” is meant to highlight the crossover between business and sports.

"This year is going to be the biggest conference yet," said Melanie Yu, president of the U of T Sports and Business Association and a fourth-year commerce specialist. "We've taken on more of an educational lens. It's a good balance about learning more about the industry and getting to talk to people in the business.

“You get an insider's view and the big picture. "

Matthew Logue, the executive vice-president and COO of S&E Sponsorship Group, is one of the insiders slated to attend. His company has negotiated sponsorship contracts on behalf of brands like Canadian Tire, Sport Chek and Adidas with the NHL, the World Cup of Hockey and just about “any of the major sports teams and leagues in the country,” he said.

U of T News spoke to the longtime Ottawa Senators fan about his career and how to make it in the sports industry.

Read about last year's conference in U of T News

A lot of students going to this conference may wonder how to break into the industry. Any tips?

I think the key is to be persistent. There's a fine line between knowing what you want and being prepared to do what it takes to get into the business. The industry is incredibly competitive. I'm very fortunate because I ended up in the right place, right time. I didn't have to go through a lot of the different steps that many people today do.

Originally, I wanted to work at the NHL or with the Leafs or the Sens, or the Hockey Hall of Fame. I applied to a lot of those and never got the opportunity to interview.

I ended up joining the company I'm at now, and that was never something I aspired to do but I got the role, I learned it and adapted and now I love it. I think a lot of people may want something very specific and want to be X, Y and Z at the NHL, but you have to be prepared to adapt and give things a chance.

And then you have to work incredibly hard – because it's competitive.

What are some challenges you face on the job?

The biggest challenge that anyone in my role faces is the requirement to continuously adapt. There are a lot of balls in the air at any given time, and a lot of different projects on the go. To be able to focus on the one at hand knowing that there are five more once this one's done and to be able to manage that and not get caught up in it – that's probably the biggest challenge.

What are the advantages?

I think it's almost the flip side of that. There's so much happening right now and the pace at which things are changing and developing it's so rapid. So new technology is propelling the industry in such a way that things we never knew we could measure we can.

The way social media has allowed brands to draw an association with something – whether they're a sponsor or not – presents advantages and disadvantages. Our company fundamnetally believes in the value of true [official] sponsorship and not just clever association through earned media.

What are some growth areas in the sports industry?

In terms of key areas, analytics would be one for sure. But it's not a clear path for anyone at this point.

Read The Toronto Sun story about the 2015 conference and the growth of analytics in sports

Content is rapidly growing. To be able to create really great content is critical.

And I do believe sponsorship is a very viable career path, especially for someone coming through a general business degree. It's the most natural path for a business student, in my opinion.

It must be pretty fun getting close to your favourite teams. What was your most memorable day at the office?

That's something that comes up regularly when people ask me about my work. The caution I would always say is, it's a job. Sometimes the right thing to focus on is like winning a new account. That's really exciting. Getting approval to go ahead with your first negotiation and lock that in.

But one very exciting thing for me, as a fan, was that I got to go on a road trip with the Ottawa Senators. I'm a big Sens fan and I got to take part in a three-game road trip with them and travel with the team. That was pretty incredible.

But you're saying one shouldn't go into the industry for perks like that.

Exactly. Honestly, you become almost less of a fan when you're in the business. Because it's work right? You watch a game and it's work, you go to a game and it's work. It's still pretty incredible. But it becomes incredible for reasons you didn't realize.

Ontario’s thriving “cluster” regions can grow our economy: Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity

vzaretski — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 19:51:02 +0000

Ontario’s thriving “cluster” regions can grow our economy: Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity

vzaretski Fri, 07/01/2016 - 15:51

Cutline

“Academic institutions – Universities – provide innovation, they provide consultants – and probably most importantly, we’re in the business of providing talent,” says Dean Tiff Macklem. Photo of Jamison Steeve and Macklem by Romi Levine

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Rotman School of Management

Economy

Innovation

Business

Where do we grow from here?

Ontario’s economic productivity is lagging compared to its U.S. counterparts, but the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity is looking for ways to bring it up to speed.

The institute is a not-for-profit organization concerned with Ontario’s economic progress, funded by the provincial government. Its latest working paper was presented at the Rotman School of Management on Wednesday by Dean Tiff Macklem and the Institute’s Executive Director, Jamison Steeve.

The paper looks at geographical regions where certain sectors are thriving thanks to an interconnected web of companies, suppliers and the academic and government institutions that support them. The Institute calls these regions “clusters” – think Silicone Valley in California, a hotbed of tech innovation.

Making these clusters stronger and more efficient, the Institute says, will in turn pour money back into Ontario’s economy.

“This virtuous cycle helps the region become more competitive, and a more competitive region is more prosperous,” Macklem writes in the working paper.

The paper zeroes in on five of the province’s industry-specific clusters to figure out what they’re doing well and how to make them even better.

Toronto, for example, is noted as a world-leading financial centre and publishing hub as well as a leader in communications services alongside Kitchener and Waterloo.

“Toronto is home to more than 4,000 companies in the financial services cluster which employ more than 145,000 workers”, says Steeve.

It’s an ever-changing sector, according to Lauren Wyman, a U of T School of Public Policy & Governance alumna who currently works at Manulife.

“While there’s a confidence there’s also definite acknowledgement that there’s so much to keep up on and pay attention to,” says Wyman, who attended the presentation.

So what makes Toronto a worthy base for these clusters? Steeve says the city is where Ontario’s future business leaders launch their careers. “They’re attracted here from an education perspective and then end up staying largely because of quality of life,” he says.

The working paper credits post-secondary schools for being a large contributor to the success of a cluster. “Academic institutions – Universities – provide innovation, they provide consultants – and probably most importantly, we’re in the business of providing talent. Talent is a key element of successful clusters,” says Macklem.

U of T Rotman Commerce student Aaron Shafton is a summer intern at Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Growth – he helped put together the Institute’s clusters report. He says there’s a feeling of optimism regarding Ontario’s economic potential. “There is this overwhelming sense of ‘yeah, things are looking really good,’” he says.

But attempting to achieve anything close to Silicon Valley’s success comes with its own set of challenges. One of the biggest roadblocks is investment, Steeve says. Venture capitalists have been taking a more conservative approach – choosing to fund safer bets over startups.

“We in Canada often sacrifice dynamism for our decency,” says Steeve. “But maybe right now we can pull back on decency for a little bit and allow for a bit more dynamism.”

As far as talent goes, the report says that government restrictions on foreign direct investment are stopping companies in Ontario from bringing in the best and brightest from other countries. It’s also proving hard to attract and keep home-grown talent who are ditching cities like Toronto in favour of California, lured by tech giants and the hot climate.

Macklem says artificial intelligence innovators at ��Ƶ are a prime example of this. The school is a leader in developing the technology that’ll play a huge part in the roll out of autonomous vehicles. But Facebook and Google are snapping up its PhD students and bringing them to the U.S.

“We’re actually really good at something but if we don’t act aggressively we won’t reap the benefits,” he says.

Read the full report here: http://www.competeprosper.ca/work/working_papers/working_paper_26

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Toronto emerging as centre of innovation - and disruption, OMERS venture fund CEO says

Learn more about the conference

Read more about innovation, entrepreneurship and startups at the ��Ƶ

Raptors, NHL, Jays execs and others to speak to U of T students at annual sports industry conference

See all the speakers

Read about last year's conference in U of T News

Read The Toronto Sun story about the 2015 conference and the growth of analytics in sports

Ontario’s thriving “cluster” regions can grow our economy: Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity

Business

Foreign-born CEOs more likely to acquire assets across borders - particularly in their home countries: Study

Power and prediction: U of T's Avi Goldfarb on the disruptive economics of artificial intelligence

Read the full Q&A at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

In MBA program, twin brothers set themselves up for success – and discovered what makes them unique

Read more about the Juneja brothers in Yahoo! News

U of T Scarborough grad aims to empower women, under-represented groups in business and STEM

Alumni from Rotman's MBA program offer tips to empower the next generation of Black business leaders

Mo Banjoko on networking in a new cultural environment

Wale Oyebanjo on the power of a diverse city

Phil McDonald on starting new initiatives at Rotman

Gender-diverse corporate boards reduce financial misconduct: U of T study

McDonald's upheaval is a stern reminder to CEOs about ethics: U of T expert

CEOs are powerful

‘Imperial’ CEOs

A question of judgment

Toronto emerging as centre of innovation - and disruption, OMERS venture fund CEO says

Learn more about the conference

Read more about innovation, entrepreneurship and startups at the ������Ƶ

Raptors, NHL, Jays execs and others to speak to U of T students at annual sports industry conference

See all the speakers

Read about last year's conference in U of T News

Read The Toronto Sun story about the 2015 conference and the growth of analytics in sports

Ontario’s thriving “cluster” regions can grow our economy: Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity

Read more about innovation, entrepreneurship and startups at the ��Ƶ